“Does Diane Sharon live here?” George asked.
Rachel nodded. “Yeah, but she’s not home,” she said. “That’s why I’m here watching Lewis.”
“Oh.” I swallowed my disappointment. “Do you know where Diane is, or when she’ll be home? Or Mr. and Mrs. Sharon?”
The baby-sitter shrugged and snapped her gum. “Nope,” she said. She let out a short laugh. “I’m just glad you’re not them, ’cause Lewis was supposed to be in bed over an hour ago!”
Just then a small, brown-haired boy appeared in the hallway behind her. He was wearing pajamas and carrying a comic book, and looked about eight years old.
“Hey,” he said, sounding sleepy. “What’s going on? Are Mom and Dad home?”
“Not yet,” Rachel told him over her shoulder. “It’s just some friends of your sister’s.”
I didn’t bother to correct her. “Hi, Lewis,” I called to the little boy in a friendly voice. “Listen, do you have any idea where your parents went tonight?”
The boy yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Huh?” he said sleepily. “Are they home yet? I want to tell them about Captain America and the evil fish.…”
I exchanged a glance with my friends. The little boy was so tired that he wasn’t making much sense.
Meanwhile the baby-sitter was frowning at us suspiciously. “Hey,” she said. “Why are you asking about Mr. and Mrs. S? I thought you were here to see Diane.”
“Diane,” Lewis mumbled before any of us could answer. “Diane’s not here. She got to go play at the cabin and I didn’t.”
“Cabin?” I said quickly, my sixth sense suddenly buzzing like crazy. “What cabin, Lewis?”
“Oh, don’t pay any attention to him.” Rachel waved her hand dismissively. “The kid’s been complaining all night because Diane got to go to the family vacation cabin up at Lake Firefly. Got to miss music school for it too.”
“Yeah.” Lewis sounded grumpy. “But I still had to go to arts and crafts day camp and make stupid rope bracelets.”
I took a step forward eagerly. “Tell me more about this cabin, please, Lewis,” I said. “Where is it, exactly? Do you know the address, or—”
“Hey!” Rachel interrupted. “If you really are friends with Diane, shouldn’t you know all this already? Who are you guys anyway?”
I hesitated. “Okay, we don’t really know Diane,” I said at last. “But we sort of met her mother this week, and we really need some information—”
“I think you’d better come back when Mr. and Mrs. Sharon are here,” the baby-sitter said. With one last crack of her gum, she slammed the door shut in our faces.
I clenched my fists, aggravated at how close we’d come to getting the information we needed. Still, at least now we had a trail to follow.
“Come on,” I told my friends, spinning around and hurrying back toward the car. “We’re going to Lake Firefly!”
10
A Long Drive
Lake Firefly?” Bess caught up with me halfway to the car. “Are you kidding? That’s at least a four-hour drive from here!”
I kept walking. “So we’d better get started.”
“Wait, Nancy,” George added. “Even if Leslie is up there at that cabin with Diane, doesn’t that solve the mystery? The two of them must be on a sort of rehearsal retreat, just like Mrs. Sharon told you. They’ll probably both be back in plenty of time for their auditions tomorrow morning.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I said darkly. “If Leslie went up there of her own free will, why wouldn’t she tell her parents? It just doesn’t make sense.”
I had reached my car by now. Opening the driver’s-side door, I slid in and buckled my seat belt. Then I glanced out at my friends, who were still standing on the Sharons’ driveway looking uncertain. “Coming?”
“But are you saying you think the Sharons kidnapped Leslie?” Bess asked. “Why would they do that?”
“To make her miss that audition tomorrow,” I said. “Don’t you get it? Everyone in town thinks Leslie is a shoo-in for that scholarship. I mean, even the CEO of Rackham Industries knows about her! With her out of the picture, Diane Sharon has a much better shot at winning.”
George looked troubled. She glanced over her shoulder at the Sharons’ house. “Now you’re the one who’s not making sense,” she told me. “I mean, look at this house—the Sharons obviously have plenty of money. Why go to all that trouble just to win a scholarship? They could pay Diane’s way at the conservatory without it.”
“I don’t know,” I said a bit impatiently. “Maybe they’re just greedy, or jealous because Leslie’s more talented than their own daughter. Whatever their reason, I intend to make sure they don’t get away with it if I can help it. And that means leaving for Lake Firefly—now. If you don’t want to come along, I can drop you off at home on my way out of town.”
Bess sighed loudly. “All right, all right,” she said. “I guess we’d better come along. Right, George?”
“I guess so,” George said, sounding a bit disgruntled. “But I get the backseat so I can sleep on the way there.”
“No problem,” I said, relieved. Despite my bold words, I didn’t relish the thought of driving all that way in the middle of the night by myself. “But before you start snoozing, you’d better call our houses so they’re not worried about us.”
“And tell them what?” George climbed into the backseat and pulled out her cell phone. “That we’re driving halfway across the state to some kidnapper’s vacation cabin?”
Bess was already strapping herself into the front seat. “Just tell our folks that we’re staying over at Nancy’s,” she suggested. “And tell Nancy’s dad and Hannah that she’s staying with one of us. That way they won’t worry.”
George nodded. As I drove off past the quiet, darkened homes of the Sharons’ development, she placed the calls. My friends and I were getting a little too old for slumber parties, but we did occasionally sleep over at one another’s homes for one reason or another, so nobody questioned her story. I felt a little guilty about the lie, but I figured my father would understand when I explained later. He always does.
Soon we were driving up the entrance ramp and onto the main highway, heading north out of town. Instead of falling asleep as she’d threatened, George had pulled out her handheld and was busily punching keys. The little machine let out a series of clicks and beeps.
“What are you doing?” Bess asked, turning around in her seat to see. “Playing games?”
“Nope,” George responded distractedly. “If we’re going all the way up to Lake Firefly, we might as well be prepared. I’m researching the Sharons.”
“Good plan,” I told her, glad that she seemed at least a little bit more interested in the case. “Let me know if you find out anything good.”
George nodded. Several minutes passed in silence, except for the bloops and bleeps of the computer and the sound of soft music from the radio, which Bess had just switched on. Then I heard George let out a low whistle. “Well, this explains a lot,” she commented.
I glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “What?” I asked. “What did you find?”
“It seems the Sharons are in debt up to their earlobes,” George replied. “All their money is going toward paying for their fancy house, the vacation cabin, and a couple of expensive cars. They really don’t have much to spare for stuff like conservatory tuition.”
“The conservatory isn’t cheap, either,” Bess added. “A few months ago Maggie told Mom and Dad that she wanted to go there instead of to ‘real college,’ as she called it.” She grinned. “Mom and Dad knew she was just looking for an excuse not to study for her math test. So they found out how much the tuition would be, and told her she had to save up at least half if she wanted to go there. That was the end of that.”
I chuckled at Bess’s story. Her twelve-year-old sister was always coming up with crazy schemes. My smile faded, though, as I thought about what George had discovered. I found mysel
f grimly unsurprised to hear about the Sharons’ money problems. Hadn’t Dad once told me that most crimes had something to do with money? It was only in the movies that people did desperate things for love or revenge or other reasons. In real life, the almighty dollar was usually the primary motive.
Gripping the steering wheel tighter, I pushed my car right up to the speed limit and held it there. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic on the highway at that time of night.
“It’s all starting to make sense now,” I said. “I just hope we’re not too late. If poor Leslie is trapped up there at that cabin, she’s probably frantic at the thought that she’s going to miss out on something she’s worked so hard for. If we want to help her, we can’t lose any more time.”
“You’re not kidding about that,” Bess said, squinting at her watch in the dim light. “It’s way after eleven. We may already be too late.”
“We’re not too late,” I said with determination. “Not yet. And I’m going to do everything I can to make sure she doesn’t miss that audition.”
“But what if the Sharons are up there with her?” George asked. “What if they try to stop us from taking Leslie back home?”
Bess glanced over her shoulder at her cousin, looking worried. “You don’t think they’d do that, do you?”
“Of course not,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “The Sharons are obviously feeling desperate, or they wouldn’t try something like this at all. But they’re not criminals. They’re not going to, you know, shoot us or something. We’ll just calmly tell them that the game is over, and ask Leslie to come back with us. Once we get her to that audition, Leslie’s parents and the police can decide what to do from there.”
“I guess.” George still sounded a little doubtful. “I mean, I hope you’re right. I guess we’ll find out in a few hours.”
After that, my friends fell silent. George put away her computer, and a few minutes later I heard the sound of soft snores from the backseat. Beside me, Bess’s blue eyes got droopier and droopier until she finally dozed off as well.
Fortunately I was wide awake. I couldn’t stop mentally chiding myself for being so focused on one theory that I’d missed the truth. It had been right under my nose all along. The flat, dark, empty highway seemed to stretch on endlessly before me, the yellow center divider lines flashing by in a regular, almost hypnotic rhythm.
I should have suspected something like this as soon as I met Mrs. Sharon. Looking back, it was a little odd how quick she was to start blabbing about Leslie’s rehearsal retreat and everything. But at the time, I was still too focused on Morris Granger’s possible motives to think about anyone else’s. I shook my head in frustration. Now we’d be lucky if we could find Leslie and get back in time.
But exactly how much luck would we need? I ran the numbers in my head. We had left River Heights at around 11 P.M. Lake Firefly was about a four-hour drive from there. That meant that if we didn’t run into any trouble, we should arrive in the lakeside town by three o’clock in the morning.
Of course, then we’d have to try to find the Sharons’ house. I decided I’d wake George up when we got closer, and see if she could track down the address online. If we could find Leslie and get back on the road right away, we’d be back in River Heights by 7 A.M. That left us time to spare to get Leslie to her 8:15 audition.
After working it out, I smiled. It would be touch and go, but maybe we would be able to pull it off after all.
Just then the car’s engine, which had been purring smoothly, let out a disturbing sputter. Then another. A moment later I felt the power in the gas pedal dropping sharply. I barely had time to steer over to the shoulder before the engine cut off entirely.
I gulped, glancing down at the instrument panel. With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I saw that the gas gauge was resting squarely on Empty.
11
Too Late?
Aargh!” I cried. I felt like banging my head against the steering wheel. Why hadn’t I checked the gas tank before we left River Heights? But I already knew the answer to that. Like so many times before, I’d been too focused on solving the mystery to think about anything else.
“Wha—whu—huh?” Bess snorted sleepily as she opened her eyes and gazed over at me. “What’s going on? Are we there yet?”
“Not exactly.” I cleared my throat, steeling myself for her reaction. “Um… we seem to be out of gas.”
Bess smacked herself on the forehead. “Stupid! Stupid!” she cried.
I frowned at her. “You don’t have to be insulting,” I protested.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” she said. “I was talking to myself. What’s wrong with me? I should know to double-check you on stuff like that by now. It’s not like this is the first time something like this has happened. Or the second. Or the forty-third.”
By this time George was awake too. She leaned over the back of the seat and just stared at the gas gauge. “Well,” she said fuzzily after a long pause. “Isn’t this just superfantastic?”
I glanced out the window at the dark, deserted stretch of highway. If there were any houses or other buildings within a couple of miles, we couldn’t see them—the moon was behind a bank of clouds, and it was too late for lights to be glowing through windows. I tried to remember the last village or farm we’d passed that was relatively close to the road. As I thought back, I also realized that no cars had passed in either direction for at least ten minutes.
“Someone’s got to come by sooner or later,” I said.
“I’m sure someone will,” Bess responded. “But do we really want to flag down some unknown stranger in the middle of nowhere at this hour?”
I had to admit that she had a point. Bess tends to look on the bright side whenever possible, so when she’s worried about something, it usually means there’s something to worry about.
George held up her cell phone. “Don’t worry,” she said wearily. “I’ll see if I can track down the closest garage. Well, the closest garage that’s open all night.”
It took quite a few calls, but George finally managed to get through to an all-night truck stop and convince one of the workers to come to our rescue with a can of gas and directions back to the truck stop. We were on the road again within an hour and a half with a full tank and a new appreciation for Good Samaritans like the truck stop worker. He even refused to take any money for his trouble.
“That guy was sweet, wasn’t he?” Bess commented as we pulled away from the truck stop. She waved to the worker who had rescued us as he watched us go. “It was nice of him to help us out like that.”
George laughed. “Uh-huh,” she said. “I’m sure it didn’t hurt that you kept fluttering your eyelashes at him. Good thing you had plenty of time to check your makeup while I was making those calls.”
As Bess protested, I laughed—but I wasn’t feeling especially cheerful. I was all too aware that we’d lost valuable time. Whatever cushion we’d had was gone; our luck was going to have to hold from now on if we wanted to have any chance of getting Leslie to her audition on time.
I mentioned this to my friends. “So let’s try to be prepared,” I suggested. “George, can you look up the Sharons’ address at Lake Firefly? That way we can find it on the map and not have to waste any time when we get there.”
“Sure,” George said. “I should be able to manage finding one simple address sometime in the next two and a half hours.”
We drove on in silence broken only by an occasional chirp from George’s computer. After a few minutes, though, I heard her let out a frustrated sigh.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, peering at her in the rearview mirror.
“It’s nothing,” she muttered. “I’m just having a little trouble finding any address listings for Lake Firefly, that’s all.…”
Bess and I exchanged a worried glance. We kept quiet, though, and let George do her thing. Our silence didn’t help. Finally George had to admit defeat.
“They must not h
ave any mail service up there,” she said with a shrug, sounding irritated. “I mean, it is mostly just a vacation town, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I think so. But I’ve never actually been there myself.”
Bess shrugged. “Me either,” she said. “I’ve been to Lake Terrance, though. That’s just twenty miles east of Lake Firefly, I think. And it’s pretty rustic up there.”
“I can’t believe they don’t list the addresses online,” George muttered. “Postal service or not, that’s just crazy.”
Despite my anxious mood, I couldn’t help smiling a little at that. George sounded personally insulted by the fact that the information she wanted wasn’t on the Internet.
“Well, we’ll just have to play it by ear, I guess,” I said, still not willing to give up. People had solved mysteries before the Internet ever existed, and we could do it too, if necessary. “We’ll just have to check names on mailboxes, go to the local police station—do whatever it takes.”
“Right,” Bess said. “The local police are going to be thrilled to see us turn up at four in the morning.”
I ignored her sarcastic comment. Pressing my foot down on the gas pedal a little harder, I kept my eyes trained on the road.
It was approaching 4:30 A.M. when we finally passed a large, rustic-looking wooden sign reading WELCOME TO LAKE FIREFLY: A PLACE TO UNWIND.
“Okay,” I said hopefully as I peered at the buildings visible by the glow of my headlights. “Now let’s just hope that this town isn’t too big.”
Lake Firefly didn’t seem like much of a town at first—just a collection of cabins in the woods, lining the single narrow paved road that led straight toward a large lake. My hopes soared. But when I reached an intersection and glanced to either side, my heart sank. More cabins lined both sides of the crossroad that paralleled the shoreline for as far as I could see by the fading beam of my headlights. There were no streetlights and the moon had set, so it was impossible to tell how far the town stretched. Everything was quiet and still at that hour, but the cars in many of the driveways and the occasional porch light indicated that there were plenty of people there enjoying the nice summer weather.